<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
	<meta content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" http-equiv="content-type"/>
	<link href="/style.css" rel="stylesheet"	type="text/css" />
	<title>O&amp;A</title>
</head>
<body>

<div class="pageTitle">
Outreach and Awareness Task Force<br/>
</div>
<br/>
<div class="pageIntro">
Welcome to the O &amp; A&nbsp;Task Force webpage
</div>

<div class="pageBody">
There are many&nbsp;
situations and people where support and help is needed. Outreach and&nbsp;
Awareness Task Force (or 0 &amp; A) tries to make St Andrew's&nbsp;
people aware of a variety of these challenging situations and gives a&nbsp;
lead in meeting identified needs.<br/>
<br/>
The Task Force meets about four times a year to plan and organise&nbsp;
activities. New faces of all ages are always welcome to join us.&nbsp;
Lifts can be arranged and supper is provided.<br/>
<br/>
For further information please contact Margaret on Hx 345582 or Trish on Hx 351324.<br/>
<!--For further information please contact Margaret on Hx 345582 or Trish on Hx 351324.<br/>-->
<br/>
<div class="pageIntro">Our Outreach and Awareness projects in 2012</div>
When we began talking about our Appeal for Others in 2012 we considered various charities in our local vicinity who needed help and after lots of consideration we decided to raise funds for "The Next Step Trust" a local charity - The Next Step Trust is an energetic, professional and established day care facility specifically designed to meet and enhance the needs of young adults with severe and complex needs. It is staffed with highly committed and experienced carers and support workers, who provide a stimulating environment to maintain and develop essential life skills across a wide range of physical and learning abilities.   The Charity is based in King Cross, Halifax and after talking to their Chief Executive we decided that we would try to raise money to buy a Prone Stander - this is a machine which helps youngsters who are normally wheelchair bound. They are strapped into this machine which then stands them up straight and this helps them with their posture and general wellbeing.  The Appeal was launched with a Sunday Lunch on Palm Sunday - 1st April 2012 and so began our quest to raise money for this worthwhile cause.  Since then we have held many and various fund raising events, quizzes, etc and our on-going total is just short of &#163;1,000 with other events in the pipeline.  Our aim is to raise as much money as possible before the end of the year.<br/>
<br/>
During the year we as a Church Family have also supported on a weekly basis the work of the Food and Support Drop in Centre at New Ebenezer and this is very much appreciated by the centre and the recipients of the food.  As a church family we try to support each appeal from the Drop in Centre as a need arises and we will be collecting gifts of groceries and personal items at our Harvest Thanksgiving Service in October. <br/>
<br/>
Please don&#180;t forget there is a box in the vestibule at Church where you can put your donations 
&#45; mainly food items &#45; that are taken to Ebenezer every week 
&#45; to be divided up and given to the many people who come there on Saturday mornings for food to keep them going all week. There are many people in the area who just are not able to make ends meet or feed themselves &#45; and sometimes their children &#45; and members of many churches around Halifax continue every week to make generous donations to help these people. Towels also welcome &#45; some people have little opportunity to wash clothes and need a change of towel from time to time. All colours welcome! If you had a hour to spare as a volunteer to help sort out the donations and give them out that would be very welcome too. 
Wednesday evenings 7 &#45; 8 pm and Saturday mornings 11 am.
<br/><br/>
If you know of any church members who are coming out of hospital please <a href="visitorsForm.jsp">contact us</a> for our Meals on Wheels service.<br/>
<br/>
Also during the year to date, as well as the above mentioned events the Church Family have continued to support the work of Methodist Homes; The NCH Lanterns; Christian Aid; Home Mission boxes, etc. and a decision was taken at our recent meeting to try and raise some money for the New Ebenezer Town Centre Outreach Project as and when a need arises.<br/>
<br/>
There are various Circuit events planned for the year and we keep on plugging these events in the weekly News Letter and as always hope for the support of the Church Family.<br/>
<br/>
O & A members are so grateful for the continued support of the Church Family, particularly during the present economic crisis and thank God that our people quite often put others before themselves.<br/>
<br/>
What has been done in earlier years:<br/>
<br/>
<div class="pageIntro">2011</div>

O & A chose to base their 2011 Appeal on The Year of The Bible by raising funds to be put towards Bible translation - here are a few facts.<br/>
<br/>
DID YOU KNOW THAT IN 2011 - THE DESIGNATED YEAR OF THE BIBLE - there are still over 300 million people around the world, speaking two thousand different languages, who don't have access to the Bible? <br/>
<br/>
To help to make a difference to this statistic, here are just a few facts from Bible Society and Wycliffe Bible Translators who are jointly facilitating a translation for the Bissa people in Burkina Faso. As WE personally grow from engaging more with God's Word in 2011, WE can extend the blessing by fundraising to give the Scriptures to men and women in one of the poorest nations in Africa - A Bible they can understand?<br/>
<br/>
SO - HERE AT ST ANDREW'S METHODIST CHURCH IN HALIFAX, WEST YORKSHIRE, ENGLAND WE RAISED MONEY DURING 2011 TO HELP WITH BIBLE TRANSLATION WORK, WHICH WILL IN TIME, GIVE THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE OF BURKINA FASO a Bible they can understand.<br/>
<br/>
Imagine bringing the Bible to a city the size of Edinburgh for the very first time. That is what Biblefresh is setting out to do in Burkina Faso. There are half a million Bissa people, but they don't live in a big modern city, they are spread out across a wide area in the south of this landlocked West African country.<br/>
<br/>
Bissa country has a dry and dusty climate, and life is far from easy for the people who live there. Most of the Bissa are subsistence farmers; tilling their fields during the short wet season just about provides them with enough food to get through the year. They also grow a few cash crops to give them money for life's basics; clothes, school fees and medicine. It can be a difficult life, but the Bissa are a hard-working people and know how to make the best of their situation.<br/>
<br/>
Bissa country is a religious crossroads. The traditional African religion of the area is giving way to two outside religions; Christianity and Islam. About a quarter of the population is Christian, but if they are to grow and mature as disciples in the complex multi-cultural world they inhabit, they need to get to grips with God's word.<br/>
<br/>
And this is where we came in. The Bissa people speak two languages, Lebir and Barka. The Bible Society of Burkina Faso has translated the New Testament into Lebir and is now working on the Old Testament. Wycliffe Burkina Faso will soon start work on Barka. The goal of the Biblefresh translation project is to raise the finance needed to get the Bible into the hands of all of the Bissa people - to launch the 2011 Appeal we held a Sunday Lunch and heard more about the work of Bible translation and we then had a year of good, informative events as we worked to achieve our goal of raising money to help with this very important work.<br/>
<br/>
This fund raising for the Bible Translation for Burkina Faso by the beginning of 2012 had raised the magnificent amount of &#163;1,460.20, through the generosity of the Church Family.   <br/>
<br/>
<br/>
<div class="pageIntro">2010</div>
During 2010 St Andrew's Methodist Church worked hard to bring to the attention of their Church Family the current position in the Holy Land - this came about because our minister the Rev Judith Satchell and her husband Paul have been regular visitors to the Holy Land for many years taking parties from various churches to visit the birthplace of our Lord and they have often spoken of the dramatic changes they have seen over the years. In 2010 Judith and Paul felt they would like to go to the Holy Land to work alongside some of the many projects that are taking place and so the Outreach and Awareness Task Force thought that this would be the ideal opportunity to widen the knowledge of our church members. To launch our appeal we held a Special Service conducted by one of our local preachers assisted by a member of The Friends of Palestine Group in Halifax, this was followed by Sunday Lunch and the showing of the film "Bethlehem Hidden From View" - this proved to be a very moving and thought provoking experience for all who were there. During the year we held an "embroidery" morning when people came together to start to embroider cross stitch patterns onto squares of black material with the intention to sew the embroidered squares together to make a wall hanging which the Local Friends of Palestine Group made into two beautiful wall hangings. During the year we took part in many events and learned a great deal about the real state of affairs in Bethlehem and surrounding areas. We raised money in various ways, Sunday Lunches, Strawberry Teas, Quizzes, Coffee mornings, etc and over the year we raised the sum of &#163;1,150.00 and have helped to sponsor the visit of a group of young people to our town by donating &#163;200.00 towards spending money for the youngsters. We also gave &#163;200.00 to Judith and Paul for the projects they worked on when in the Holy Land and gave a further &#163;200.00 for them to donate to causes they thought needed the money most. This left us with a balance of &#163;550.00 which we earmarked early on to go towards the sponsorship of a student attending the Bethlehem University. The situation in the Holy Land remains in our thoughts and prayers and we will continue to pray that very soon there will be peace once again in the Holy Land.<br/>
</div>

</body>
</html>
